[Hey guys! Just popping in to say that today is a double update, so if you clicked this notification and not the one for the previous chapter, you should probably scroll up and read that one first 😉]

Static. Deafening, scratchy static that makes me want to clap my hands over my ears.

The instinct is there, but I can't.

"I can't move."

The static picks up for a moment, then abates, and finally a voice comes through. "I know."

"Who's that?" I ask. It's like talking to someone over a very poor phone connection: too tinny to immediately recognize their voice, and my mind feels like molasses. "Who are you."

"It's me, Ronnie. Hold on." More skips and pops have me wishing I could cringe away from the noise, and then it finally clears. "Can you hear me now?"

"Davis?"

A breath escapes my lips—except that it doesn't. Again, the instinct is there, but I feel nothing. No loosening in my chest, no soft exhale. I try to turn my head, but my neck won't obey, like there's a giant void where the muscles should be. The silence is pure, no rattle of air from my lungs and no heartbeat in my ears to fill it. My thoughts are sluggish, creeping along like thick, viscous lava where usually they would flow like a swift stream.

"Davis, I can't see."

"One second."

A series of clicks and pops come from close by. It takes me a moment to recognize the old comforting sounds of a keyboard, muffled and twisted and telescoped as if through a tunnel.

And then he appears, slightly blurred but still him. I wait for the warm rush that comes from his presence, but feel only the cold knowledge that he is here.

I squint—or try to. Nothing happens. He remains just slightly out of focus, like a photo taken on an old flip phone.

"Davis?"

He hasn't quite met my eyes yet, his gaze settling just below. His irises flick from side to side, almost like he's reading something.

"Davis, look at me."

He finally does.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

"No."

He blinks, and I realize that I haven't. I don't feel the need to. When I try, it's like moving a phantom limb: The signals are sent, but there's no evidence.

"What happened? Where are the others? Ayo? Sven? Darwin?"

"Darwin took Sven. The others...Ayo has them. She's under investigation, but technically she's done nothing wrong. There are no regulations on artificial intelligence. Yet."

"Darwin has Sven? Where did they go?"

He shrugs. "Anybody's guess. Wherever it is, we probably don't want to know."

I try to swallow, but my throat is an abyss. Was this all part of Sven's master plan? His game of chess—was Darwin the king on the winning side?

"The virus—the cure—Sven had it—"

A whirring starts up somewhere nearby, like the fan kicking in on an old, overworked computer. My thoughts stutter, hopping from one to the next but never completing themselves. It feels like slogging through quicksand.

"Don't think about it too much, please. You need rest."

"Davis." The word is sluggish, skipping like a video call with bad connection. "I don't feel right."

His eyes shift down again, flick from side to side again as he resumes typing. "I'm trying, Ronnie."

"Where are we?" Everything is still blurry, no matter how hard I try to keep focusing my eyes.

"Somewhere safe."

Why does he look so two-dimensional? Why is the lighting so harsh and unforgiving on his face, why are there so many rough edges?

Why can't I blink?

His right hand moves back and forth just out of sight, somewhere under my chin. Click click. The reflection in his eyes changes ever so slightly, but I can't see well enough to make it out.

"Davis, what are you staring at?"

His image skips several frames, and the whir becomes a whine.

"Don't think too hard, please." He swallows. "I need you to stay calm. Don't try to do too much."

He reaches for something out of my line of sight, beneath my face. A wince pulls at one corner of his mouth as he pulls his hand away as if burnt.

I desperately try to draw a breath, wondering why my lungs aren't screaming for air. Where is the rise and fall of my chest? Where are my hands? Where am I?

"What is happening to me?" I ask, my voice cracking as it raises in pitch.

Davis's throat bobs his hands hovering for the first time near my face. Then he stops, as if unsure whether to touch me. The final moments of the standoff flash through my mind—his hand falling away as I made my choice, his heart in the crosshairs of my gun.

Yet I still need him. I need him to touch me.

And I wish I didn't.

Something catches his attention, his eyes flicking down. A moment later, he stands. "I have to go. I'll be back soon. I promise."

"Wait—"

"I'm going to fix this." He bends down to stare into my eyes, and the haunted desperation there is strong enough to burn through, but everything else looks wrong—his face too smooth, his complexion too washed out, his lips unrefined and the signature crinkles around his eyes lost as if victims of a low-resolution camera. "No matter what I have to do. I love you, Ronnie."

I can only watch his back as he walks out the door, and then I wait for the coldness to settle in as I realize I'm utterly alone.

It never does.

No urge to hug myself tightly. No lump fighting its way up my throat, no tears threatening to fall. Only a dingy, gray room the likes of which might be found in an underground bunker. Paint peels off the walls, rust scabs the metal desk, and the chair he left, while wheeled, is wobbly and barely adjustable. Off to one side, a television is set to a news station, and even through my blurred vision, I can make out the anchor's outline and the headline below her:

SHELTER IN PLACE.

I try to swallow. Nothing happens. We were supposed to save the world.

And what now? Sven had the cure. Sven has been kidnapped. Sven and his creations—us—have destroyed humanity as we know it. Maybe I was never a queen; maybe I was the first pawn, the move that started the war, and the moment I grabbed that gun was the moment all hell broke loose.

My eyes slip from the television to the desk, landing on something just to the left of the keyboard. Two pieces of metal, melted into each other and attached by wires to something just under my line of sight.

I remember something Ayo said, what feels like ages ago now—right after she sliced into my temple.

Hard drive and CPU, if you will.

And then: They're fused.

"Davis?"

I hear it now: The slight skipping of my voice, as if it's just a program designed to play certain sounds, but it's struggling to run on a machine that can't handle its sophistication.

"Davis!"

The absence of my heartbeats deafens me, because I know this feeling. It's panic, and it should be pounding away under my ribcage, lodging itself in my throat.

The whirring kicks in again, quickly passing a hum and careening straight toward a high-pitched whistle.

My voice stutters, whether in my haste to get it out or due to processor error I don't know. I only know that I can't take a step to chase after him, can't take a deep breath in an attempt to shout louder, can't even tilt my head to try to catch a glimpse of him in the room beyond. I can only plead, "Come back."

I have only the echo of his parting words to answer.

I love you, Ronnie.

The door stays empty. The television flickers as the story switches. A bizarre chant takes up residence in my mind, like a broken phonograph that can only play one song.

Loved you then, love you still—

Always have, always will.

There is only one half-second of utter silence as the fans below me shut off, and then everything goes black.

[Ok, now you can hate me. A little.

What else is there to do in quarantine?]